Porsche Accuses Nissan of Cheating on the ‘Ring

Posted by: Trevor Miles onSeptember 30th, 2008

As a relatively portly sports car, the Nissan GT-R has amazed people the world over by posting blistering lap times on the Nurburgring, far faster than its specifications might allude to. It was rumoured after the initial stock GT-R lap that the car was running on non-production tires, but when a Nissan rep mentioned it was running on “cut slicks” it was brushed aside as a translation error and soon faded from the collective memory. Today, the controversy is back.

7:29? Nien, say some men in laboratory coats.

In their clean white laboratories in Stuttgart, some Porsche engineers got together, analyzed the GT-R data and came to the conclusion that it wasn’t just fast; it was too fast. Something didn’t quite add up, so they did what any men of science would do; they got some stopwatches, some calculators, a driver, a GT-R, two 911’s, and headed for the Green Hell. Ah, Germans. Where would Internet car arguments be without you? Maybe you should have taken a Z06 along as well.

So, what did the driving deacons from Deutschland find? Pretty much what their theoretical calculations told them they should expect. Their chassis designer/Ring expert driver got the 911 Turbo and GT2 around in times of 7:38 and 7:34 respectively. The Nissan, however, couldn’t be persuaded to break the 7:54 mark, over 25 seconds off Nissan’s claimed lap record. Why? We’ll let August Achleitner, Porsche’s 911 product chief, explain.

“This wonder car with 7:29 could not have been a regular series production car. For us, it’s not clear how this time is possible. What we can imagine with this Nissan is they used other tyres.”

He went on to say that the 7:29 time only made sense if the car was running on semi-slick tires, just like it was accused of doing many months ago.

That said, Porsche’s claim is not likely to put a dent in the GT-R’s sales numbers, with the bulk of cars being purchased long before they hit the showroom floor. US $69,850US $76,840? A pittance for a car capable of defying the laws of physics!

Ben, just because you work for NIssan doesn’t mean you’re a certified expert on Nissans or Porsches.

Personally, I’d love to see the cars on the track at the same time. A head to head comparison, as daily inconsistencies wouldn’t matter anymore and it’d be a fair evaluation. Will it happen? I doubt either manufacturer would set it up. I wonder of Top Gear will though…

Oh man I love that show, but I digress, so I’ll just end it with: the Porsche can handle more than 15 launches on its tranny, so it wins ;)